BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Switzerland stock market ended on a firm note on Thursday, in line with the trend seen across global markets, amid rising optimism about a potential vaccine to treat coronavirus infection, and on encouraging economic data from almost across the world.
The benchmark SMI ended up 97.89 points or 0.97% at 10,187.56, the day's high.
LafargeHolcim, Adecco and Swiss Re gained 3 to 3.3%. Richemont, UBS Group, Credit Suisse and Swiss Life Holding moved up 2.3 to 2.5%.
ABB, Swatch Group, Zurich Insurance Group and Sika gained 1.7 to 2%. Geberit, Lonza Group and Swisscom also closed notably higher.
Novartis edged up marginally. The company has agreed to pay more than $729 million to settle U.S. government charges it paid illegal kickbacks to doctors and patients to boost drug sales, the U.S. Department of Justice said. According to the company's spokesman, the costs of the settlement were covered by provisions it had already made.
In the midcap section, Dufry spurted nearly 7.5%. Flughafen Zurich and AMS gained 4.1% and 3.9%, respectively. Helvetia, Julius Baer, Sonova, Baloise Holding and Logitech ended higher by 1.4 to 2.3%.
Dormakaba Holdings gained 1.2% after the company said it signed an agreement to divest its project installation business in Norway.
On the economic front, Switzerland's consumer prices declined for the fifth straight month in June, data from the Federal Statistical Office showed. The consumer price index decreased 1.3% year-on-year in June, the same rate of decline as seen in May. Economists had expected a 1.2% fall.
On a monthly basis, consumer prices remained unchanged again in June, while economists forecast a 0.1% rise.
Prices for international package tours, fruits, vegetables and heating oil prices increased in June, while the prices of air transport and hotel accommodation fell from the previous month.
The core CPI fell 0.8% annually in June and declined 0.1% from the previous month. The EU measure of harmonized index of consumer prices fell 0.1% monthly in June and declined 1.3% from the previous year.
Encouraging jobs data from the U.S. that said non-farm payroll employment skyrocketed by 4.8 million jobs in June after soaring by an upwardly revised 2.7 million jobs in May further bolstered sentiment. The Labor Department also said the unemployment rate dropped to 11.1% in June from 13.3% in May. The unemployment rate had been expected to dip to 12.3%.
Meanwhile, in news about coronavirus, reports say that an early-stage human trial of a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech showed creation of neutralizing antibodies.
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